White House saved 650,000 jobs...some reports as high as 1 million. As proof, we have evidence from 2 states that saved around 20,000 jobs. Not sure where the other 980,000 are, but I'm sure we'll hear more about that later...

WASHINGTON  About 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year is on track.
New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were scheduled to be released publicly later Friday. White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said the figures will show that, when adding in jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.
Government recovery plans  everything from the $787 billion stimulus to tax credits for buying new homes to government deals on new cars  are credited with helping the economy grow again after a record four straight losing quarters.
But the job market has yet to show signs of recovery, putting pressure on the White House to show that the stimulus was worth its hefty price tag. The economy has shed millions of jobs since Obama signed the stimulus in February, giving Republicans ammunition to say the government is spending too much for too little effect.
The White House says the report bolsters its case that the economy would have been far worse without the stimulus  a package of government spending, tax cuts, state aide and social programs.
Friday's data will have its limitations, since calculating "jobs saved" will always produce an inexact estimate and collecting data from so many sources is certain to produce errors. But the number released Friday represents the most accurate head count of stimulus jobs to date, one that is more precise than previous estimates based on White House economic formulas.
And it represents the most extensive effort ever by any administration to calculate the effect of a spending program in real time.
"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.
The White House promised the data would be far more reliable than the first batch of numbers, on federal contracts, which the administration initially embraced, then branded a "test run" after thousands of errors were discovered.
Teachers are expected to represent the largest number of jobs in the report. With state budgets in crisis, federal aid helped governors avoid major cuts in education, which officials said spared hundreds of thousands of teachers from the unemployment line.
In Indiana, where officials reported saving 13,000 teaching jobs, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels warned against putting too much stock in the job numbers.
"I personally wouldn't try to tell a taxpayer that this had any effect that I can see on the economy or let alone that there is some specific number of jobs attached to it," Daniels said earlier this month.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, said Friday "there's just no doubt" that the federal aide spared 6,100 government jobs, including teachers, police officers and firefighters, in his state.
"There would have been dramatic layoffs," he said.

It sure sounds like the Great Depression in El Centro, Calif. In this city near the Mexican border, the unemployment rate hit a whopping 30.1 percent in September, the Labor Department reports. But context is crucial. In 2000, when the national unemployment rate bottomed out at 3.9 percent, the unemployment rate in El Centro was at 20 percent.

The jobs picture is so different in some cities that they would hardly seem to be in the same country. In Bismarck, N.D., the unemployment rate was 2.9 percent last month. Personal income in North Dakota grew more than in any other state in the second quarter--1.5 percent, compared with 0.2 percent nationally. While the nation's job market is awful overall--thousands of Americans are exhausting their unemployment benefits daily--it's clear that the true jobs picture is as varied as the nation's topography. With the promise of a recovery on the horizon, new data show that the employment upturn will be regional as well.

According to a new forecast from IHS Global Insight, unemployment rates in some cities will remain stubbornly high a year from now. As many as 16 cities--in California, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Indiana--will have unemployment rates higher than 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Some of those cities were among the hardest hit by the housing market crisis or had economies highly dependent on manufacturing, IHS reports.

In El Centro, unemployment will be as high as 26 percent next year, IHS estimates. "In the central valley of California, unemployment rates are very much affected by the agricultural economy," says Jim Diffley, regional group managing director at IHS. Other California cities where IHS says unemployment will stay above 15 percent include Merced, Modesto, Fresno, Redding, Stockton, and Hanford-Corcoran. While unemployment rates are driven by the makeup of regional economies, they are also greatly affected by demographics. "Younger or more immigrant-prone areas have always had higher unemployment," Diffley says. In other words, don't interpret El Centro's high unemployment rate as an indication that it has been the city most affected by the recession.

Michigan cities dependent on the auto manufacturing industry--namely Detroit and Flint--are expected to suffer high unemployment for a protracted period. Perhaps more surprising is that the job market in a city such as Rockford, Ill., is forecast to worsen over the next 12 months. Rockford now has a 15.2 percent unemployment rate, which IHS expects will move closer to 17 percent by the fourth quarter of next year. Elkhart, Ind., saw its unemployment rate rise as sales of recreational vehicles made in local factories began to slide. IHS estimates Elkhart's unemployment rate will remain above 15 percent through the end of 2010. Joblessness will very likely be prolonged by corporate America's proclivity--and ability--to do more with fewer workers. One hopeful possibility, however, is that because this recession's job cuts were so steep, employers may be forced to increase hiring to keep up operations when the recovery begins.

The economies of metro areas in the central part of the country--from Texas to Montana--have held up better in this recession. That's partly because they didn't experience the same housing boom and bust that was seen in parts of Nevada, Florida, and Arizona. Many areas were insulated by their supply of natural resources, despite the volatility in commodity prices. And given that income levels in the central states have grown more than in the rest of the nation, they will be the first to recover from the recession, Diffley says.

What does all this mean for job seekers? Although Bismarck's unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation, the unemployed shouldn't necessarily take flight for North Dakota. They won't find much churn to open up opportunities. "I'd head to Texas," Diffley says.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up. The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.

We've lost 7 million jobs since this pos took office.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. Joseph Goebbels

History repeats because stupid people allow it to. Me

__________________

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress & the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution,
but overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

I think it's truly remarkable that, for an administration who's REAL trackable numbers have been so far off, THIS completely impossible-to-track number is eerily similar to the earlier prediction that "600,000 jobs will be saved by the end of 2009".

Now, they can't get any legitimate numbers right, but they EXCEEDED expectations in one area that can't really be tracked?

The Obama administration on Thursday lashed out at a prominent critic of its Cash for Clunkers program, arguing that the popular trade-in initiative helped give the auto industry and the economy a much needed boost in the past few months.

In a blog post on whitehouse.gov, the administration argued that a report on Clunkers by automotive Web site Edmunds.com "doesn't withstand even basic scrutiny" and is based on "implausible assumptions."

On Wednesday, Edmunds.com released a study that argued Cash for Clunkers did not have a great impact on the auto industry. The report said that 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the program last summer, but that only 125,000 of them would not have been sold without the Clunkers rebates.

As a result, the report said, the administration's economic claims for the program "have been rendered quite weak."

The Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.

The Edmunds report also said that taxpayers shelled out an average of $24,000 per car sold as a result of the program.

But the White House fired back, saying Thursday's Commerce Department report that showed auto sales contributed 1.7 percentage points to the economy's 3.5% growth rate in the third quarter is proof that Cash for Clunkers had a meaningful impact on both auto sales and the broad economy.

"Edmunds.com has released a faulty analysis," the blog post said. "This is the latest of several critical analyses of the Cash for Clunkers program from Edmunds.com, which appear designed to grab headlines and get coverage on cable TV."

The administration argued that Edmunds' conclusions were incorrect because the study assumes that the market for cars that didn't qualify for Clunkers was unaffected by the program.

"In other words, all the other cars were being sold on Mars," said the administration.

The administration's blog post argued that Clunkers helped to lower auto prices on the rest of the vehicle market as well, a fact the administration said Edmunds ignored. The White House also said that people were drawn into dealerships because of the program and ended up purchasing cars even if their trade-in didn't qualify for the program.

Cash for Clunkers will have a long-term impact on the overall economy, since automakers increased their production through the end of the year to meet demand created by the program, the administration said.

Finally, the administration said the Edmunds' report flies in the face of independent analyses, and the administration's Council of Economic Advisers. The blog urged readers to "put on your space suit and compare the two approaches yourself."

Edmunds stands by its report: In response, Edmunds.com said Thursday that its figures were correct, and that the growth in GDP had more to do with naturally recovering auto sales and not with incentive programs.

The company also said that there was no hard evidence of consumers buying cars after discovering they didn't qualify for the rebate.

"It does, after all, seem a bit odd that masses of consumers would elect to buy a vehicle because of a program for which they don't qualify -- doubly so when you add in the fact that prices shot up during Cash for Clunkers, creating a disincentive to buy," Edmunds said in a statement.

In the end, Edmunds said the report actually shows that there is some good news about the auto industry -- the recovering economy is helping boost auto sales even without the help of Clunkers.

"With all respect to the White House, Edmunds.com thinks that instead of shooting the messenger, government officials should take heart from the core message of the analysis: the fundamentals of the auto marketplace are improving faster than the current sales numbers suggest."

White House saved 650,000 jobs...some reports as high as 1 million. As proof, we have evidence from 2 states that saved around 20,000 jobs. Not sure where the other 980,000 are, but I'm sure we'll hear more about that later...

Looks like they assumed since 2 states saved 20k that all 50 would. 50*20,000= 1,000,000

Don't agree with their assumption, but that seems to be where they got it.

The major problem I have with that is that I've been hearing a LOT about the teachers in Indy for a long time....it was the absolute BEST CASE scenario, and one completely traceable example of this working, but through the culmination of a perfect storm of circumstances.

There is also a math problem here...if TWO states managed to track about 20k in jobs saved, it should actually be 26 X 20,000, since it took two states to equal those totals. That would account for 520,000 IF they were actually able to extrapolate these best case scenarios out across the other 48 states, which they really can't.

THEN, figure in the fact that, proportionately, these numbers will be out of whack because Indiana is 14th and Wisconsin is 18th in population. IF these best case numbers played out, the majority of smaller states would never hold up their end of the bargain.

The bottom line is, these numbers are fudged, and they were always going to be fudged from the time they were announced. The stimulus probably saved a few jobs here and there, but it probably also caused some job losses in other places, and was ultimately a wash....a 787 billion dollar wash...